


Two Hunded and Twenty Five

by prickledheart



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse Prevented, Eating Disorders, Grocery Shopping, Mental Health Issues, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:01:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28058853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prickledheart/pseuds/prickledheart
Summary: Five had a lot of questionable habits. Whether that included starting his day with eight cups of coffee or perhaps a margarita, or being always, in some form, obsessively in control, and over the top filled with rage- well, it was an issue, in any case. The latest issue his siblings had confronted him with, though, was not so much an issue but a ‘disturbance in the force of nature,’ to quote Klaus.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	Two Hunded and Twenty Five

**Author's Note:**

> TW: eating disorder, calorie counting, etc... like solely based on five having an ED.  
> be careful with reading :)
> 
> found this in my drafts from summer'19 (before season 2, so forgive any inaccuracies) so it may be a bit unrefined from picking it back up after over a year, but, whatever. i'm happy to finish this small piece :) 
> 
> anyway, enjoy?

Five had a lot of questionable habits. Whether that included starting his day with eight cups of coffee or perhaps a margarita, or being always, in some form, obsessively in control, and over the top filled with rage- well, it was an issue, in any case. The latest issue his siblings had confronted him with, though, was not so much an issue but a ‘disturbance in the force of nature,’ to quote Klaus.

Aside from the apparent sin of eating a sandwich with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, sometimes the occasional banana if he was feeling whimsical, it was also noted that Five hadn’t been eating enough if at all.

(Of course, The Boy wasn’t receptive to the idea, to their impromptu intervention- they all vow to try again later, when he’s not two drinks in and holding his third glass.)

“You’re a growing boy,” Luther starts easy, and Five immediately wants to deck him- Diego just snickers behind him, knowing what’s coming.

His defense is, has, and probably always will be, “it’s high calorie!” It would be the truth, too- at least, that’s what it was, that first time he’d made the sandwich in over forty years.

But now he was here, in the backseat of their car while Allison drives and Vanya sits in the passenger, on their way to the grocery store; it really did seem like a ‘real’ family trip. An outsider could easily see it as just two lesbian moms and their angry, angsty, teenage son.

Inwardly, he laughs dryly to himself- Five will have to tell that one to his ‘two gay dads.’

He gets pulled out of his inner thoughts, jokes, as Allison unclicks his seatbelt for him- he hadn’t even realized they’d parked, gotten out of the car themselves, and were waiting for him to do the same. “I don’t need your help,” he claims, but there’s nothing Five can do about the true fact that he’d zoned out in the car.

“She knows you don’t,” Vanya interjects, before Allison can quip back at him. “But you weren’t moving, and we knew you'd get upset if we leave you in the car again.” 

Regrettably, he has to admit she’s a master at Five related de-escalation. His buttons are unpushed, and he drops it, showing his relent with a sigh, and lets Allison close the door for him. If it was Klaus, he’d jokingly offer his hand for his _little_ brother to hold, but Allison doesn’t- she values her life, after all. 

Thus, they walk into the grocery store with little ~~more~~ incident, Vanya veering to get their cart while Allison pulls up the list on her phone. “Let’s see…”

Once they’re in the store, Five immediately breaks off to get his items alone- they’ve all agreed to let him shop for his own stock after finding out hoarding food made him feel more secure. Unknown to them, picking out his choice in products made him feel even more in control, rather than letting them choose, especially when he lacked hawk-eyes to judge his… procedure.

There’s a specific method to it, almost playing coy as he goes through it, but Five knows exactly what he’s doing.

In any case- if his siblings disagreed with him, they could come get their own bread. He was sticking with the crustless kind, no matter what comments Luther made. Even when a compromise was proposed, usually in the form of Allison trying to Mom him like he was Claire, or Klaus being the self-proclaimed ‘best big brother ever’, Five refused. There were too many variables he didn’t want to recalculate, and it was just easier to take the nutrition facts at face value (he had ignored their questions of why it mattered, and just jumped away when it was posed last).

Regardless- here Five was, yet again, standing in the bread aisle, and he knows which to pick by now.

(It’s odd, still- unreal that he’s been here so recently, so many times, that the brand and the specifics are routine now. It’s almost as if the apocalypse is really gone for good. It’s an absurd reward.)

His hand reaches out for the white, crustless loaf, and then he sees it- grain, same cut, same brand.

Five looks up and down the aisle, as if he’s about to cross the road- and then flips both packages over to compare labels.

He scans through them, glancing down, then up, not bothering with pretending like he cares too much, ready to tell anyone (his siblings or otherwise) that he’s a vegan and that ‘you can never be too sure’ if questioned- but it doesn’t come to that. He sticks with his white bread ( _Ten calories lower,_ ) and is on his way, heading off to the next aisle over which he knows holds the secret ingredient for his favorite sandwich. 

It’s when he’s doing the same observation on plastic jars of the gooey white fluff that Vanya sneaks up on him and, _no,_ she doesn’t startle him- just surprised him, is all. 

Five quickly schools his face back into that not of a deer in headlights, but the feeling it conveys returns when Vanya prods, lightly, “Nutritional info?”

Suddenly, his throat is dry, all clogged up. All he can do is shrug; Five’s hardly _playing_ coy, and if one says he is, he’s certainly not doing a great job at it.

“Reducing my sugar intake,” is what he croaks out, and Vanya hums thoughtfully, but makes no comment.

Five takes this chance to put the jar and his bread into the cart, thankful he decided just the moment before she appeared, and turns tail to run- well, to step, in a forced casual manner, just a few yards down the lane; he pretends to evaluate the peanut butter like he did with the bread. 

“How about this one?” His sister holds out a glass jar of some kind of organic, no preservatives brand- he recognizes it as one he’s observed before, and inwardly wrinkles his nose. 

Five knows the calorie count of this one, that it’s much too high for him nowadays, and he shuts it down with a cool, “I prefer the powdered one.” He grabs it from a slightly raised shelf, needing to stand on his tiptoes a bit to reach, but he gets it down. This specific brand is one hundred and thirty calories less per serving than the jar Vanya is holding, and Five justifies it ( _for no reason at all_ , he thinks, _because she hasn’t asked._ ), mumbling now about how, “this would last longer, you know.” 

Vanya just sighs, putting back the organic jar as Five tosses his into the basket. Whether she thinks about the time and place of the conversation she’s starting before she speaks, Five doesn’t know, but her words catch him off guard.

“Are you doing alright, Five?”

The boy looks at her, and he can’t help but stiffen- she looks genuinely worried for him, and there’s no escape without causing further problems. Inhaling, he brings his hands together and pauses dramatically- he’s nothing without his flair, except just a little too pathetic for anyone to view him. “It’s a simple matter of preferring a non-expirable version than one that lacks an ingredient that aids just that.” Five doesn’t look at her while he’s saying it, just at eye level slightly past her head. “I’m done, already- and if you are too, then we should find Allison.”

He turns before Vanya can intercept him- his words, his lies, his _illusion_ \- and the conversation is over, for now, at least.

Soon enough, they reunite with Allison, who’s carrying a few vegetables in one arm, and has a loaf of bread hooked in the other ( _for Luther,_ some part of Five thinks, but refuses to recognize in reality). 

“Did we get everything?” Mostly, they all know, she’s asking Vanya- who nods that she’s gotten her half of the grocery haul, but then Allison’s gaze shifts noticeably to him, extending the question. 

“I have everything I need,” Five lies, equipped with that schoolboy smile he’s had plenty of time to practice, hoping he can convince them it’s all he wanted from this run.

They let him lie through his teeth, satisfied for whatever reason, and head for the checkout, then the car, then their home. While his sisters do the heavy lifting, both in car conversation and in putting the groceries away (he helped teleport the bags inside, at least, is his defense when Allison tells him to help), Five is stuck in his thoughts.

It may be easy to appease them, but the true struggle comes from convincing himself that his two hundred and twenty five calorie sandwich is more than enough, that he’s not hungry anymore, and that, when studying himself in the mirror, he’s really doing _just fine._

**Author's Note:**

> can yall tell i couldnt think of a good title? my working one? marshmallow fluff.


End file.
